I have never seen, in my 21 years of existence, one tiny red cup cause such a huge uproar. For those of you that don’t know (I’m not sure how you wouldn’t) recently, a man by the name of Joshua Feuerstein went into his local Starbucks and noticed that they had released their signature red cups. Starbucks has done this for many years and as a new year comes, so does a new design.

This year however, Starbucks went with a simpler, plain red cup with their logo on it. Outraged by the lack of decoration on the cup, Feuerstein took it as far as to say that Starbucks is trying to “take Christ and Christmas off of their new cups.” His response was to say that his name was, “Merry Christmas” so that his local baristas would have to write Christmas on the cup and say that phrase when calling out his drink. He even encourages people to share, like, and comment his video, along with #MerryChristmasStarbucks to bring awareness to this “catastrophe.”

Many people have had different responses to this movement and have been very vocal about it. Some for it, some against it. For the record, I am a Starbucks barista and I am also a Christian. I work with Christians and non-Christians alike and almost all of us agree on one thing, to take the stance that Starbucks is trying to get rid of Christmas is the most ignorant stance you can take. On November 10th, many of the Starbucks around the world flipped their stores upside down and the whole chain was flooded with red as the holiday decorations were put up for the season. What Starbucks is lacking in design on the cup, I assure you, they have made up for with the rest of the store.

My response and advice to Christians throughout this whole thing is this: do not think that just because a cup is red and doesn’t have the word “Christmas” on it that this automatically means the company is trying to get rid of Christmas from their stores. In fact, their 3 signature blends for the holiday season, all have the word Christmas in the name.​In light of that, we at DCNoise propose a different telos for your holiday happenings. Instead of being upset with others for not sharing in our celebration, we ought to turn our gaze inward. During this time of celebration and reflection on what Christ came to do for our lives (to heal the sick and dying, just in case you forgot that part), we need to ask ourselves this question: what other “issues” in our lives are as insignificant as the color of a secular icon, yet consume us to such an extent that they distract us from making changes in areas that really matter? If we are constantly inundated with petty “social issues,” how are we to focus our time and effort on things that will have eternal significance? If we spent as much energy being the hands and feet of Christ as we do wasting our time worrying what secural industries are doing with their products and services, maybe then we would have the time to end world hunger, homelessness, human trafficking, and the need for orphanages. Pick your battles Christians and when you do, please do it with some logic and save the rest of us the damage of your ignorance.

-Justin Hatton

"Justin Hatton is a guitarist in the band called I Shot The Albatross and has his own blog where he talks about many Christian related topics whether it's church growth, or the growth in one's self in general. Justin is also a staff writer for DCNoise, as well as the Booking Manager.”If you are interested in receiving email notifications about future blogs posts, please follow the link below and sign up for our emailing list!http://www.dcnoise.com/emailing-list